“The relative stagnation of industry which has been described earlier means more than a mere failure to increase material wealth. The resulting unemployment has caused many of the youngest and most vigorous men and women to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

In economic decline Scotland could still survive; but a disproportionate drain on her resources of mind and character, great as they are, must mean in the end that Scotland will cease to be herself.”

On the upside, of course, if everyone leaves it does lower the unemployment figures.

The Irish got by relying on the Emigration boat for years. Every time the economy becomes a bit dodgy they pile on the first available flight out of there. I remember some idiot a few years ago who was working as a teacher in Libya. Teaching rich Libya’s with the advantage of huge wages and no tax that the Irish economy was so bad that he had been forced to go to places like Libya to look for work. (yep he sounded a right tit). Anyway it work’s for them because only the well off and really stupid are left. Makes for low house prices and loads of room.

Has anything really fundamentally changed in the mindset of Westminster with regards to Scotland. Always throwing a googly, twisting any chance of improvement to screw another few bob out of the populace whilst smiling reassuringly and patronising the natives. They behave like shareholders stripping out the majority share for themselves and their families and associates.

This ties in with the earlier chapter of Preventing Scottish representation and directly working against the idea of Scotland having specific, particular needs addressed by experts from the local culture, ignoring Scots Law and dismissing the Equal Partnership clauses inherent in the Act of Union.

This book is very powerful, a snapshot of a countries governance almost half a century ago With references to similar injustices going back another hundred years, a snapshot of half the time the Union has existed. Really shameful and makes the bank crash of 2008 and subsequent rescue of the City of London fall into place.
It is just the way it has always been.

These political types really know how to operate in the fast lane, especially where their own enrichment is involved.

Lanarkist the worst thing is they made the banking collapse on purpose the would be rulers of Earth, just another way to strip the wealth out of the citizens of the planet, keep them poor and divided, thats the way they have been doing it from day one.

The tone of this chapter seems to be overtly racist/xenophobic towards the Irish Catholic immigrants. Many came to Scotland before 1916 as citizens of the UK, which Scotland also belonged to. At that time they were British citizens moving from one part of Britain to a different part of Britain. The author still appears to regard the Irish Catholics as outsiders, why has no-one commented on this aspect? To be honest it sounds a bit Enoch Powellish to me. He seems to suggest being of Irish Catholic descent is somehow inferior. A bit like the Westminster attitude to Scotland that we are rightly condemning.

@ Ted Agreed, but this is his most emotive chapter with a final need to “fight” for Scotland. I do not think he is getting at the Irish as a race, but again at the blindness of the London masters who ignored the demography of ” North Britain “. Currently though, there has been blogging about how New Labour might “use” the Catholic vote around Glasgow this year, so there may be a legacy, we shall see.

@Ted That’s probably why this book doesn’t have a greater readership, excellent up to that part then crashes and burns on the type of casual anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholic bigotry which was considered normal back then and is still quite prevalent today – shame really.
He expresses exactly the same attitude towards the Irish that he bemoans in the English.

Wow, I think this is an eye opener. It is seemingly leaning toward being anti-Irish and with little favour for Catholic immigrants. There was much more of an open dislike of Catholic folk back then, which would be unacceptable now. (I know our school in Gateshead had run ins with the local Catholic school, always seemed quite daft to me). I do not think the argument here was meant to be racist however.

When taken in context, he was stating what happened in terms of the issues of emigration and immigration, and laying the problems at the feet of that lot down in Westminster, in which the agenda was certainly not about creating a fair society with equal rights for the people in all parts of the union, indeed the plan looked to be to depopulate and carry on with divide and rule as normal.

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